On the island by the gazebo, down amongst the trees, and right beside the water’s edge, there is a place that I consider my own. The gazebo island may seem a heavily trafficked location for a sit spot, but when I slip off my shoes and climb into the folds of my hammock, the sounds of the dog walkers and joggers, tour groups and exploratory children, and even the occasional middle school cross country team become far-off reminders that others enjoy my space as well. To ensure that these others do not disturb me, I have adjusted my hammocking technique so that I face away from the gazebo, and instead enjoy the sight of the water’s edge.
This sit spot found me on the last day of September. I was reading for class on a Friday—already a surprising occurrence—and ventured to the island on the lake with a friend to bask in the late September splendor. Whether or not this is accurate, I remember very few of the aforementioned visitors to the island present that day, and so I sat, together only with my friend and the clucking and dipping of ducks on the water. We eventually decided that the location was too perfect, what with the afternoon sun shining through low-hanging branches and the water only feet away, to ignore the obvious potential for a hammock. Since that day I have returned almost weekly, and sometimes even more frequently, to allow myself to feel weightless, if not always untroubled.
From this spot I have swung until the sun goes down. I have seen the geese bob their heads, resurface, shake their wings dry. I have seen small children wondering at the nesting duck (and the girl in the hammock). I have seen people test the water for chemicals, seen a dog test the water for depth. I have held my breath as a blue heron (my spirit animal) gracefully swooped to its 3:00 perch. I have slightly swayed and read Nietzsche and Molière, Aeschylus and Oscar Wilde. I have even pulled the sides of my hammock up around me and slid further into my sleeping bag as a light drizzle turned, as a light drizzle is wont to do, into a deluge. I have, without fully intending to, established a relationship with that small corner of the island so that it is now inextricably tied to my sense of peace and steadiness in this whirly world of ours.
“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight”
(from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)